After renting a 1.6-acre tract of land adjacent to the St. Tammany
Parish jail from a political supporter for several years, Sheriff Jack
Strain's office decided to purchase it in November for $330,000. Strain
had been leasing a two-story structure, parking lot and surrounding yard
space on the real estate as a base for various divisions since 2008. He
plans to maintain the existing operations there, a Sheriff's Office
spokesman said.

An appraisal obtained by the seller prior to the
sale late last year concluded that the parcel at 1120 Polders Lane in
Covington was worth $350,000.

The property's tax value was determined to be $170,000 in 2011 by the parish assessor's office.

The
Sheriff's Office bought the tract from HJH Land Development LLC, which
is managed by Peter Wayne Hanson, who had acquired the land and building
in 2006 for $165,000. Hanson's companies in the past have contributed
at least a few thousand dollars to the campaigns of Strain and other
local politicians, records show.

The Sheriff's Office this week
said it secured itself a good deal on a useful property. They did not
plan on moving out of the site any day soon.

"If you'll be some
place for an extended period of time, it makes more sense to own it than
to rent it," sheriff's spokesman Capt. George Bonnett said.

Hanson
on Friday explained that he had invested "about $120,000" on
overhauling and improving the property before selling it. He cited, as
an example, the digging up and filling in of an old pool.

"I tried
to sell to (Strain) for the appraisal value," Hanson said. "He finally
offered me $330,000, and $20,000 I left on the table."

The parcel
on the corner of Polders and West 29th Avenue has been housing the
sheriff's K-9 units as well as personnel overseeing inmates' transport
and recreational time. Local, minor offenders tasked with cleaning up
roads and ditches in the area as part of their punishments also report
there, Bonnett said.

Eventually, Bonnett added, it became
practical for Strain to buy the property instead of lease it from HJH.
Scoggin Appraisal & Consulting Inc. evaluated the parcel during
talks between the parties, and the firm certified $350,000 was a fair
price for it.

Bonnett called the Sheriff's Office's subsequent acquisition of the property on Nov. 2 "a regular, normal business transaction."

"This is done a thousand times year in St. Tammany Parish," Bonnett said.

Hanson concurred.

Asked
to comment on donations to Strain, including $1,000 in 1999 and a
combined $2,500 last year by an electric services company he runs,
Hanson said: "I can't tell you how many politicians I've donated to."

The
sale didn't mark the first occasion Strain has engaged in a land deal
with supporters of his. In 2006, just hours after purchasing a former
golf practice facility along Interstate 12 near Slidell for $2 million, a
partnership formed by Bay Ingram and Don McMath sold the property to
the sheriff for $2.4 million. Strain, McMath and Ingram all said the
property in reality could have commanded in excess of $3 million.

McMath
and Ingram by then had given money in support of Strain's candidacy for
office. The sheriff ultimately built a new law enforcement complex with
the purchase, replacing an outdated, overcrowded and storm-damaged
headquarters.